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The United States and Japan have agreed to establish a facility in Japan for the joint production of advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles — the latest move by two allies that have repeatedly expressed alarm over China's growing assertiveness in Asia. Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi announced the deal late Wednesday in Cebu, in the central Philippines, where he met US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on the sidelines of an annual gathering of Southeast Asian defense chiefs.
What the deal actually builds
The missiles will be produced under a joint initiative called "Operation Supercharge" and are, in Koizumi's words, "essential for the F-35" — the advanced fighter jet operated by both countries' militaries. According to the Associated Press, the two sides agreed to build a final assembly and inspection plant in Japan for the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile, or AMRAAM. Koizumi gave no further details — no timeline, no production volume, no location within Japan — and that thinness of detail is itself part of the story: this is a framework agreed at ministerial level, with the specifics still to come.
Koizumi said he and Hegseth "shared a sense of crisis… regarding the increasingly severe regional situation" and agreed to strengthen the alliance's deterrence and response capabilities "with greater speed and intensity than ever before." Both men reaffirmed, in Koizumi's phrasing, "a free and open international order based on the rule of law, which rejects any attempts to unilaterally alter the status quo through the use of force, coercion or other means." Koizumi cautiously added that the discussions were not directed at any specific country — the standard diplomatic caveat that fools nobody about the intended audience.
The backdrop: Chinese ships, disputed seas, and a buildup
The context arrived almost on cue. Koizumi said on Thursday that three Chinese destroyers and a coast guard ship had together crossed the Osumi Strait, south of the southern main island of Kyushu, and headed east into the Pacific Ocean this week. Japan has been accelerating its military buildup in its southwestern islands to deter China, and Hegseth, in a separate meeting with ASEAN defense ministers led by Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr., renewed the Trump administration's assurances of a robust deterrence against China's increasingly aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea — waters Beijing claims almost in full, and through which a major share of world trade passes.
Hegseth described the American approach as "strong, quiet and clear": "strong enough to deter coercion and aggression, quiet enough to avoid needless escalation or public theatrics to let our actions speak for themselves." A joint missile plant fits that doctrine neatly. It deepens the alliance's industrial base in Asia rather than relying on trans-Pacific supply lines, it puts production capacity close to the theatre where the missiles might be used, and it signals to Beijing — without a shot being fired — that the US-Japan alliance is converting concern into hardware. As Nikkei noted, the announcement came from the same Cebu meetings whose stated aim is to avert a major regional conflict while strengthening defense cooperation.
Whether "Operation Supercharge" stays a modest assembly plant or grows into something larger will depend on the details Koizumi did not give. But the direction is unmistakable: after years of warnings about China's naval and missile buildup, Washington and Tokyo are now building the weapons together, on Japan's soil. For the wider Asia security picture, see China's space weapons warning and North Korea's missile barrage.